The Trailsman #294

“That’s good. I like for all my visitors to enjoy themselves,” Sally said, enjoying Martha’s discomfort. “Stink’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”

Fargo went through the door, holding it open for Martha to follow him. Stink jumped up from his chair when they entered. He took off his hat and held it with both hands.

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Stink said, and Martha said she was happy to make his acquaintance.

“Miss Lawrence thinks you’re in trouble, Stink,” Fargo said. “She tells me that the judge and his friends have hired a man named Custis Kane to get you to tell him where the Bryans are hiding out.”

Stink went rigid and turned pale when he heard the news. “K-Kane’s not a man to fool around,” he said. “He’d as soon kill me as not.”

“Don’t worry,” Fargo said. “He’s not going to find you, and if he does, I’ll be with you.”

“First thing, you and I will take Miss Lawrence home. Then we’ll decide what to do next.”

“Fine with me,” Stink said. He looked at Martha more carefully. “I sure do thank you for coming here to warn me.”

“You’re welcome,” Martha said. “I don’t like what’s going on, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“You did fine,” Fargo said. “Come on, Stink. Let’s walk the lady home.”

They got Martha back to her house without incident and sneaked inside. When she reached her bedroom, she raised her window and waved to them to let them know she was safe and that her father hadn’t heard her.

“She’s a fine woman,” Stink said as he and Fargo made their way back to Sally’s. “She’s too good for that Tomlin. He’s a skunk.”

Fargo agreed. “It’s only a few hours till daylight,” he said. “We’ll get a little sleep at Sally’s and then we’ll go warn the Bryans that Custis Kane is after them. Do you think he can find that cabin?”

“Hard to say about a man like that. He knows the woods, and if he knows the Bryans are out there, he might sniff ’em out.”

Fargo slept well in his bed, but Stink had to sleep on the kitchen floor. He’d tried to talk Sally into letting him stay with Kansas Kate, and Kate said she didn’t mind, but Sally had put her foot down.

“That’s against the rules, and you’re not going to do it,” she told Stink.

But Kate helped him make his pallet on the floor in the kitchen, and that made Stink almost as happy as if he’d been allowed to sleep in her room.

Just after daylight, Fargo woke Stink by nudging him with the toe of his boot. Stink came awake quickly, and got up off the floor.

“Damn,” he said, stretching, “I’m gonna be a little stiff and sore today.”

“Better than being a little dead,” Fargo told him, “which is what you’d have been if Custis Kane had paid you a visit at your place. Get ready to ride. We’ll have to go to the livery for my horse. What about yours?”

“I don’t have any horse,” Stink said. “I ride shank’s mare.”

“Not where we’re going. Maybe Collier will have a horse we can rent.”

“Sure, he’s always got horses. I can’t pay, though. I spent everything I had on Kate last night.” Stink smiled at the memory. “And it was sure worth it.”

“You don’t know Kane. He’s not a fella who lets anything stop him from getting what he wants.”

Custis Kane wasn’t happy. He’d spent half the night looking for Stink Dugan and hadn’t been able to find him.

As soon as he and Jonathan Orcutt had concluded their bargaining, Kane checked the filthy room where Stink lived, but Stink wasn’t there. Kane waited patiently for hours, but as the night wore on, he’d grown more and more impatient. Where was the little bastard?

Kane started making the rounds of the saloons. He’d gotten word of Stink in several of them, but nobody seemed to know where the little man had gone. It wasn’t until Kane stopped in the Far Call that he finally got lucky.

“Sure, Stink was in here earlier,” the bartender told Kane. “He collected on a debt and said he was going to spend every penny of it on Kansas Kate.”

“Works for Sally Garvin. But it’s mighty late. Stink’s probably gone by now.”

Kane didn’t have any other leads, so he decided to take a chance that Stink was still at Sally’s. He arrived just in time to see Stink going inside with a big man that Kane knew must be Skye Fargo, the Trailsman. Orcutt had mentioned him. He was the one who’d been with the Bryans, and it was interesting to Kane that the two men were together.

Kane thought it over and decided to wait until Stink came out again. Then he’d get the whole story if he had to beat it out of him.

As a matter of fact, the idea of beating the information out of Stink had a great appeal to Kane. He liked beating smaller and weaker men, and Stink certainly filled the bill. Not Fargo. Kane didn’t want to tangle with him unless he had to.

Kane had heard a little about the Trailsman. He wasn’t the kind of man Kane wanted to mess with. Not that he was scared of him. Kane just preferred to engage in fights he was sure of winning.

Kane stood in the shadows across the street from Sally’s and waited for Stink to leave. The minutes dragged into an hour, and Stink still hadn’t come out. He must have had a hell of a lot more money than Kane would have guessed if he could afford to stay with a whore for the whole night.

But Kane could wait. He’d wait all night if he had to. He promised himself that the longer he had to wait, the more severely he’d beat Stink when he showed himself on the street again.

Kane had finally gone to sleep sitting on the boardwalk with his back up against the wall of a barbershop. But he came awake in time to see Fargo and Stink leaving the whorehouse just after dawn.

It was still dark because of the clouds, and there was also a little mist of rain in the air. Somewhere off in the distance, a rooster crowed, just as if the sun was coming up. A dog snuffled along the street in front of the boardwalk, tracking the scent of some animal.

Kane kept still. If Fargo and Stink saw him at all, they’d think he was just some drunk, sleeping off his night’s boozing. Kane watched them go off up the street. The dog stopped and watched them as well. When they turned the corner, Kane got up to follow them. The dog saw him and ran off in the opposite direction.

Kane didn’t know where Stink and Fargo were headed, but since he didn’t have anything else to do, he might as well find out.

Kane was a big man, well over six feet tall, and wide enough to have trouble fitting through a narrow doorway. His size made it difficult for him to trail anybody, so he had to keep well back of the two men he was after.

He rounded the corner around which they’d disappeared and waited until they went into a building. He recognized the place as a livery, and he wondered what the hell they were up to. Were they planning to leave town? And if they were, where would they be going? To see the Bryans?

Kane had a horse, but it was stabled elsewhere, too far away for him to get to it and get back before Fargo and Stink were long gone. All he could do was wait and watch.

When the two men rode out of the livery, Kane marked their direction and hurried to the stable. The owner was a sleepy-eyed man in denim pants and a gray shirt. He rubbed the black bristles on his chin and told Kane that he’d be happy to rent him a horse for the day.

Kane didn’t want to pay, but he didn’t have time to argue or give the man a beating, so he paid for a bay mare and got her saddled as quickly as he could. Then he rode off after the Trailsman and Dugan. They couldn’t have gotten far, he told himself.

He thought the thing to do was stick with them, and if they went to where the Bryans were holed up, he’d do the job Orcutt had paid him to do. And if the Trailsman and Dugan interfered, he’d kill them, too.

But he’d have to remember to get Orcutt to pay for the horse. Kane sure as hell didn’t want to be out the money for that.